


A Little Less Alone

by PompousPickle



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Character Study, Chronic Illness, Gen, I have IBS and was upset about it so I took it out on Johnny oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 07:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6042604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompousPickle/pseuds/PompousPickle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short character study of Johnny Sasaki, set shortly before MGS4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Less Alone

The loneliness was the worst part about it all. Waking up at three in the morning, hearing the soft breaths of everyone sleeping around him and the acute ringing in his ears. His limbs were completely frozen beneath the skin, cold sweat forming on his arms, pooling between his fingers. His stomach churned over again and again in continued pain. He fumbled to the bathroom, tripping over his own feet, desperate not to wake anyone up, desperate not to make much noise.

The worst was still feeling so alone.

The stomach aches, the diarrhea, the crippling pain. None of it was a secret. Every unit he had been in knew. Everyone laughed. He laughed. Called it a quirk. Joked how he couldn’t look at pretty girls without needing to shit his pants.

It never stopped though.

Late at night the nightmares would come and creep at his brain, pulling the trigger on his stress and setting it off. The fire and shooting and heat. Meryl’s face as she was dragged away. Again and again and again. Friends gained and friends lost. He’d wake up shaking. And his stomach would turn and clench over and over. Everything he ever ate would come back. Violently and quickly, without call and without answer. And he couldn’t stop it.

Except he could.

He hit his head against the wall of the public bathroom. The sweat had started forming around his face, accumulating behind his ears. His stomach was pulsing in pain to a frantic rhythm, like an extra heartbeat. He could stop this so quickly. He clenched his fist and watched the veins bulge in his arms. Nanomachines. A single needle and it would all go away. The pain. The screaming. The humiliation. The nightmares. No longer falling behind. No longer devalued and put on meaningless tasks. He could be the soldier that his team needed.

He could be the soldier that Meryl deserved.

He pulled himself up onto the toilet again and held his head between his hands. Just one needle and he was out of it. And he couldn’t even work up the courage to let it happen. He laughed it off, lied on the reports, and dealt with the pain. But at three in the morning, two hours before the rest of the team woke up, Johnny Sasaki never felt more useless.

He wasn’t even brave enough to let them put a needle in his arm. He couldn’t even fix himself. Protect himself. All the technology in the world and he couldn’t even let it do its job. All because he was too afraid of a sliver of metal in his arm.

His head fell back silently on white ceramic and shook. His body felt empty, but it kept emptying itself anyway. How was he supposed to watch over her? Protect her? How would she ever see him as anything but the fuck-up in the back of the line, desperately trying to hit the right notes and take the right steps?

He bit his arm and let the pain finally subside. In a few hours, this would go away, he knew. And it would come back. Again and again. And the nightmares. And the loneliness. He closed his eyes and saw her face, pulling himself up to collapse again on his barren bunk. He felt weightless and out-of-focus, but still so heavy and full. But at least when he closed his eyes, he could see her face. At least when he gave himself a reason to fight, he felt a little less alone.


End file.
